


learned every constellation just to find where you’re at

by jaystrifes



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Dragon Zuko, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, Spirit Aang, Stargazing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:15:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23390800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaystrifes/pseuds/jaystrifes
Summary: Zuko and Aang climb to the roof of the palace and try not to think about the war, or dragons, or dead airbenders, just for one night.
Relationships: (implied) Aang/Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 177





	learned every constellation just to find where you’re at

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Until the Sun Goes Down](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22704958) by [Simon_Northcote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simon_Northcote/pseuds/Simon_Northcote). 



> For [Monsoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Simon_Northcote/pseuds/Simon_Northcote)! I finally finished reading Until the Sun Goes Down and loved it so much I had to write a little ficlet for it!!
> 
> For everyone else, this story will make more sense if you read that one first, but I hope it's vague enough to be a point of entry for you into the insanely good worldbuilding of the fic that inspired it.

_“It happened in the roofs of the palace, away from cold, intelligent golden eyes and under the stars. Aang held the back of his neck as their lips brushed together perfectly, like they were made for each other. He had overheard Zuko talking to Iroh about something earlier that day, something about how to tell if someone felt the same way about you. When Zuko came to talk to him, everything clicked, and he had been so nervous (more than he had ever seen him before), Aang took pity on him and made the first move before Zuko could finish his clumsy, romantic rambling. It had been one of the sweetest moments in his life.”_

***

“Come on, last one there’s a snail sloth!” Aang called, his voice carrying on the cool night breeze.

Zuko wedged his foot against a windowsill and pushed himself up, gripping the eaves of the next tier of the roof. “That’s no fair!” he said through gritted teeth.

He could have just shifted into dragon form, but it wasn’t worth ripping his clothes—especially because he’d fallen back into the custom of wearing nicer garments at the palace. Plus, he didn’t want to attract attention. Azula’s eyes followed him constantly, and they weren’t welcome here in the moments he was able to steal away with Aang.

When Zuko finally heaved himself up onto the top tier, Aang was already there, waiting in the wind to tousle Zuko’s hair. He’d won by a mile, of course. Advantages of being an airbender, or something more than that. Zuko wasn’t exactly sure what he was, and Aang had never wanted to talk about it directly, but as far as he knew, regular airbenders couldn’t _become_ air the way Aang could.

Then again, few firebenders could become dragons at will, either. In a way, they were both different from their people. Maybe that was part of why they got along so well.

Aang settled next to him on the red roof tiles, outlined in ghostly silver before he flickered more solidly into reality, the oranges and yellows of his robes regaining their vibrance. He was grinning, bright and warm as the sun. Zuko’s heart skipped a beat. Now would be the perfect time to tell him. He opened his mouth, but the words wouldn’t come.

“Are we going to look at the stars like we planned, or are you just gonna look at me?” Aang asked, tilting his head like he was playing innocent.

What if he knew already? What if he knew and he didn’t feel the same way?

When Zuko had gone to Uncle for advice, he had said it was important to be honest and to respect the other person’s feelings, even if they weren’t what he wanted them to be. He had also said, looking somewhere beyond Zuko’s shoulder, that Zuko probably didn’t need to worry, but what did that even mean? He’d never done this before, so what part was he _not_ going to worry about?

Zuko swallowed hard. “Yeah. I mean, yeah, let’s—”

He shuffled to lay down flat, and Aang followed his example, on the opposite slant of the roof so the tops of their heads were together. He almost wished they were laying next to each other instead, but maybe, maybe Aang was keeping his distance for a reason. Zuko didn’t want to push.

The angle wasn’t so steep that they had to worry about sliding off, but he kept his knees bent anyways, heels braced against the tiles. He couldn’t make himself relax, not when he felt like his chest was going to burst with this wildfire of feeling.

It became easier to breathe with the distraction of Aang stretching his hand to the stars, drawing lines with one finger. There was the Great Bell, he explained, and on the horizon, the Wise Arrow that guided journeys between the air temples and supposedly always pointed in the direction you needed to go. Zuko had never heard of those, and really, he couldn’t make out anything in the areas Aang talked about. It was nice just to listen to him speak freely about what he remembered from his culture.

Zuko raised no argument until Aang got to one Zuko did recognize, except that he called it a sky bison. “Wait, no, that’s a dragon.”

“What?”

Zuko tipped his head back to look at Aang over the ridge of the roof. “That’s clearly Onaka, the gluttonous dragon. He's my uncle’s favorite.”

Aang almost snorted on a laugh. “Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror, dragon expert? You only have four legs! The constellation has six, like a bison.”

“No, the pair in the middle, that you think is legs—those are his wings.”

“Tiny wings for a dragon!”

“Well, yeah. Onaka can’t fly very well because his wings are so small and his body is so thick. But look, he’s still long, like a dragon.”

“Lina happens to be an extra long sky bison! _She_ has to be extra long to be extra graceful.”

“Okay, what about those two?” Zuko took Aang’s hand and guided him to the ancient dragons, Ran and Shaw. One was marked with a faintly blue star as its eye, the other with a faintly red one, and they faced each other, claws locked together and wings spread in symmetry. “Do those look like bison too?”

Aang craned his neck, trying to see the stars from a different angle. “Hmm, it kinda looks like a mouth, with teeth?”

“They’re dragons!” Zuko said, only a little exasperated. He dropped his hand back down, but Aang kept their fingers intertwined. Zuko’s face warmed, and he held on tighter. Every now and then, Aang’s skin seemed to give way to nothingness, but then solidified again.

“Are all constellations dragons in the Fire Nation?”

“I guess that’s right. I mean, there’s—over there, see?” He gestured with his free hand. “That’s Azulon. My grandfather was named after him. And my sister, kind of.”

“Over _where_?” Aang asked, giggling. It was a sound like chimes, ephemeral and soothing. “You’re not pointing at anything!”

It was stupid, and Zuko didn’t quite know why he was smiling so hard his face hurt, but he was. He remembered a similar argument at the South Pole, Katara and Aang sitting to either side of him on the ice, on a peaceful and clear night without snow. Mostly it had been the two of them discussing the star patterns, while Zuko kept quiet. His scar had still been raw and ugly back then, uglier than it was now. It ached more in the cold, and he didn’t care to socialize with anyone in the Water Tribe at first. It was Aang who had pushed him to accept Katara’s friendship and open up.

Of course, putting too much faith in her acceptance was what had gotten them driven out. Maybe if he’d just kept quiet, they would still be there with her. Zuko wondered about her often, about whether or not the tribe was safe. He had only told Iroh about his time there, but he knew Azula eavesdropped on those conversations, and what Azula heard would eventually get back to their father.

Sometimes he wished he had been born nobody, like Aang or Katara. Maybe his life would be simpler then, if it didn’t feel like anyone’s fate was resting in his hands. If he wasn't so trapped in the honor of royalty. 

He imagined not being a dragon, but that part didn’t feel right. At least as a dragon he was stronger, and he could keep the people he cared about safe. Maybe they could have flown away, the three of them, away from the war to be happy together.

Aang turned over onto his stomach. He leaned so close over Zuko’s face that his nose almost brushed Zuko’s forehead, gray eyes big and searching. “What are you thinking about?”

Zuko shook his head. “Nothing important.” His heart thumped. “But, um. There is something I’ve been meaning to say.”

He sat up and tried to collect himself, tried not to let the crisp ozone breath of Aang’s proximity scramble his brain. His palms were sweaty, and his forehead too. He wished he’d thought to wear his hair in a top-knot; he could run to grab a ribbon for it, but no, he was just stalling for time, trying to delay the messy jumble of words that would inevitably escape him. He wasn’t good with words. Aang knew that about him. What if Aang thought all this nervousness was unattractive? What if he had liked him before, but now he just thought Zuko was pitiful for not being able to speak his mind? Just— _speak_!

“Aang, I—we’ve known each other for, for a while now, yeah, and I, um. I think I, I mean I know I…agh, I’m so bad at this, I don’t know how to tell you that—that when you smile at me, everything feels like it’s going to be okay, and you’re always there for me, even when nobody else can see you, and I’m really afraid of anybody seeing you because what if they hurt you, and I don’t know what I’d do if you ever got hurt, but I—”

“Zuko?” Aang interrupted, and Zuko stopped to gulp in air, his whole face red and panic rattling his veins. Before he could respond, Aang slid a hand behind his neck and closed the distance between them.

The touch of his lips was soft, tentative, but real. They fit together in an unpredictable kind of harmony, imaginary lines connecting the bright dots of the night. They made their own order amidst the chaos.

“I like you, too,” Aang said, smiling, knocking his forehead gently against Zuko’s and resting there. “I _more_ than like you, actually.”

And just like that, all of Zuko’s words were gone again. His eyes watered when he blinked, but he didn’t cry. They hadn’t even kissed for that long, yet Aang left him breathless. Zuko decided he didn’t need to breathe ever again if he could just be with Aang this way, if Aang could kiss him once for every star in the sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Opening paragraph taken from chapter 2 of Until the Sun Goes Down! Thanks to @wildlydeepgay and @lovely_local_dreamer for helping me with dragon constellation ideas :3
> 
> Join the [zutaraang discord](https://discord.gg/dGUAyYY)!


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